I’ll go on record as saying that I think “Pro Deals” and “Pro Staff” are totally fine. But just like anything else in fly fishing (or in the rest of the world), abuse can ruin a good thing. Kirk Deeter’s recent Angling Trade piece articulated some of the real problems that exist with this system. …
It feels like I was laying on that rock for hours. Like I got there in broad daylight and left as night approached. However long it really was, it was a long time. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t catching fish after fish. I wasn’t exactly having fun laying on the rock. I was trying to …
I’ve been using the Pirate’s Fly Patch for over two years, and it has become an indispensable part of my fly fishing. It stays clipped to a panel in the back of my car, giving all my flies have a place to live. Whether it be drying out wet patterns or simply serving as a …
In this 4th of July(ish) episode I get political. And in the vein of most politicians, I don’t say a whole lot. What I do, however, is hopefully get you thinking about a few topics that impact fly fishers and US citizens alike. Public lands and social media censorship have direct implications for those who …
Today is not a holiday. But tomorrow is. And like any red-blooded American, I’m working today before stocking up on meat, charcoal, and colorful imported explosives. No time for fly fishing writing. But, the Rusty Flybox is a channel for me to break out a few posts that didn’t get a lot of traction the …
One of the great misconceptions about fly fishing is that it costs a lot of money to get started. In some ways, that’s true. There are a lot of specialized types of fly fishing and angling techniques that aren’t easy or possible with entry level gear. And although small stream fly fishing for trout or …
Waders and wading boots are often afterthoughts in fly fishing gear discussions. But if you fish a lot, would you rather have a great fly rod and mediocre boots or a mediocre fly rod and great boots? I don’t think I’m overstating things when I say that another few feet of “castability” isn’t going to …
Let me be clear: I did virtually everything I should have done beforehand. The rod was stored disassembled, in it’s sock, in it’s tube, sealed. Nothing was applied to the male ferrule. No paraffin, no candle wax, and definitely no nose grease. I know that there are different sides to this debate, but rod makers …
A bluebird morning quickly turned dark and ominous. Not coincidentally, a fish-less morning quickly turned interesting. It seemed like perfect conditions: a warm, still, spring morning. There were bugs in the air. No one else was in the parking lot, and there weren’t any fresh boot tracks on any of the trails. The only thing …
You’ve probably been there before. Lying in bed, the night before a fly fishing excursion. You have thoughts. Questions, actually. You might attempt the counting sheep equivalent of visualizing heavy trout coming to the net. But, for analytical minds like many fly anglers possess, that practice gets one thinking about hypotheticals and other situational what-ifs. …
